Final Score Power Index - an objective evaluation of NFL teams, based on final scores of games played.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

APR vs. ESPN Week 9

What this is

A comparison of
APR's
Week 9 power rankings with
ESPN's
rankings for the same week of games. This acts as a sanity check
(both ways) to see what teams are over- or underrated.

Only teams with the widest differential are listed. The
number in parentheses is the difference between APR's rank and
ESPN's rank.

Last week, APR and ESPN were mostly in agreement, except for a
couple noticalbe outliers. This week, they're still mostly in
agreement, only those two outliers have moved even farther
apart.

Teams ESPN likes more than APR:

Colts (+12)

ESPN bumps the Colts 4 spots on their 3-point home win over the
(now) 4-4 Dolphins. It just doesn't seem like that impressive a
win.

Yeah, Luck threw for a rookie record 433 yards, and he Colts have
a winning record, with a not-impossible shot to get to 9 wins and a
chance at the playoffs. But this is also the same team that needed
overtime to score 19 points on the Tennessee "what defense?" Titans,
and the same team that got demolished by the can't-beat-anybody
Jets.

There's just too many signs of a bad team for the Colts to be
ranked as high as #11.

On the bubble

Nobody closer than +5 (Eagles, Chargers)

Teams APR likes more than ESPN:

Panthers (-14)

Yeah, APR is just wrong on this one. There's no way the Panthers
deserved a 5-spot bump this week, no way they're anywhere near #15
right now. The problem is, a lot of close losses is not a sign of a
team that'a about to break through—it's the sign of a team
that doesn't know how to win.